ISAAC ASIMOV wrote:The New York World's Fair of 1964 is dedicated to "Peace Through Understanding." Its glimpses of the world of tomorrow rule out thermonuclear warfare. And why not? If a thermonuclear war takes place, the future will not be worth discussing. So let the missiles slumber eternally on their pads and let us observe what may come in the nonatomized world of the future.

What is to come, through the fair's eyes at least, is wonderful. The direction in which man is traveling is viewed with buoyant hope, nowhere more so than at the General Electric pavilion. There the audience whirls through four scenes, each populated by cheerful, lifelike dummies that move and talk with a facility that, inside of a minute and a half, convinces you they are alive.

The scenes, set in or about 1900, 1920, 1940 and 1960, show the advances of electrical appliances and the changes they are bringing to living. I enjoyed it hugely and only regretted that they had not carried the scenes into the future. What will life be like, say, in 2014 A.D., 50 years from now? What will the World's Fair of 2014 be like?

I don't know, but I can guess.

One thought that occurs to me is that men will continue to withdraw from nature in order to create an environment that will suit them better. By 2014, electroluminescent panels will be in common use. Ceilings and walls will glow softly, and in a variety of colors that will change at the touch of a push button.

Windows need be no more than an archaic touch, and even when present will be polarized to block out the harsh sunlight. The degree of opacity of the glass may even be made to alter automatically in accordance with the intensity of the light falling upon it.

There is an underground house at the fair which is a sign of the future. if its windows are not polarized, they can nevertheless alter the "scenery" by changes in lighting. Suburban houses underground, with easily controlled temperature, free from the vicissitudes of weather, with air cleaned and light controlled, should be fairly common. At the New York World's Fair of 2014, General Motors' "Futurama" may well display vistas of underground cities complete with light- forced vegetable gardens. The surface, G.M. will argue, will be given over to large-scale agriculture, grazing and parklands, with less space wasted on actual human occupancy.

Gadgetry will continue to relieve mankind of tedious jobs. Kitchen units will be devised that will prepare "automeals," heating water and converting it to coffee; toasting bread; frying, poaching or scrambling eggs, grilling bacon, and so on. Breakfasts will be "ordered" the night before to be ready by a specified hour the next morning. Complete lunches and dinners, with the food semiprepared, will be stored in the freezer until ready for processing. I suspect, though, that even in 2014 it will still be advisable to have a small corner in the kitchen unit where the more individual meals can be prepared by hand, especially when company is coming.

Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence. The I.B.M. exhibit at the present fair has no robots but it is dedicated to computers, which are shown in all their amazing complexity, notably in the task of translating Russian into English. If machines are that smart today, what may not be in the works 50 years hence? It will be such computers, much miniaturized, that will serve as the "brains" of robots. In fact, the I.B.M. building at the 2014 World's Fair may have, as one of its prime exhibits, a robot housemaid*large, clumsy, slow- moving but capable of general picking-up, arranging, cleaning and manipulation of various appliances. It will undoubtedly amuse the fairgoers to scatter debris over the floor in order to see the robot lumberingly remove it and classify it into "throw away" and "set aside." (Robots for gardening work will also have made their appearance.)

General Electric at the 2014 World's Fair will be showing 3-D movies of its "Robot of the Future," neat and streamlined, its cleaning appliances built in and performing all tasks briskly. (There will be a three-hour wait in line to see the film, for some things never change.)

The appliances of 2014 will have no electric cords, of course, for they will be powered by long- lived batteries running on radioisotopes. The isotopes will not be expensive for they will be by- products of the fission-power plants which, by 2014, will be supplying well over half the power needs of humanity. But once the isotype batteries are used up they will be disposed of only through authorized agents of the manufacturer.

And experimental fusion-power plant or two will already exist in 2014. (Even today, a small but genuine fusion explosion is demonstrated at frequent intervals in the G.E. exhibit at the 1964 fair.) Large solar-power stations will also be in operation in a number of desert and semi-desert areas -- Arizona, the Negev, Kazakhstan. In the more crowded, but cloudy and smoggy areas, solar power will be less practical. An exhibit at the 2014 fair will show models of power stations in space, collecting sunlight by means of huge parabolic focusing devices and radiating the energy thus collected down to earth.

The world of 50 years hence will have shrunk further. At the 1964 fair, the G.M. exhibit depicts, among other things, "road-building factories" in the tropics and, closer to home, crowded highways along which long buses move on special central lanes. There is every likelihood that highways at least in the more advanced sections of the world*will have passed their peak in 2014; there will be increasing emphasis on transportation that makes the least possible contact with the surface. There will be aircraft, of course, but even ground travel will increasingly take to the air*a foot or two off the ground. Visitors to the 1964 fair can travel there in an "aquafoil," which lifts itself on four stilts and skims over the water with a minimum of friction. This is surely a stop-gap. By 2014 the four stilts will have been replaced by four jets of compressed air so that the vehicle will make no contact with either liquid or solid surfaces.

Jets of compressed air will also lift land vehicles off the highways, which, among other things, will minimize paving problems. Smooth earth or level lawns will do as well as pavements. Bridges will also be of less importance, since cars will be capable of crossing water on their jets, though local ordinances will discourage the practice.

Much effort will be put into the designing of vehicles with "Robot-brains"*vehicles that can be set for particular destinations and that will then proceed there without interference by the slow reflexes of a human driver. I suspect one of the major attractions of the 2014 fair will be rides on small roboticized cars which will maneuver in crowds at the two-foot level, neatly and automatically avoiding each other.

For short-range travel, moving sidewalks (with benches on either side, standing room in the center) will be making their appearance in downtown sections. They will be raised above the traffic. Traffic will continue (on several levels in some places) only because all parking will be off-street and because at least 80 per cent of truck deliveries will be to certain fixed centers at the city's rim. Compressed air tubes will carry goods and materials over local stretches, and the switching devices that will place specific shipments in specific destinations will be one of the city's marvels.

Communications will become sight-sound and you will see as well as hear the person you telephone. The screen can be used not only to see the people you call but also for studying documents and photographs and reading passages from books. Synchronous satellites, hovering in space will make it possible for you to direct-dial any spot on earth, including the weather stations in Antarctica (shown in chill splendor as part of the '64 General Motors exhibit).

For that matter, you will be able to reach someone at the moon colonies, concerning which General Motors puts on a display of impressive vehicles (in model form) with large soft tires*intended to negotiate the uneven terrain that may exist on our natural satellite.

Any number of simultaneous conversations between earth and moon can be handled by modulated laser beams, which are easy to manipulate in space. On earth, however, laser beams will have to be led through plastic pipes, to avoid material and atmospheric interference. Engineers will still be playing with that problem in 2014.

Conversations with the moon will be a trifle uncomfortable, but the way, in that 2.5 seconds must elapse between statement and answer (it takes light that long to make the round trip). Similar conversations with Mars will experience a 3.5-minute delay even when Mars is at its closest. However, by 2014, only unmanned ships will have landed on Mars, though a manned expedition will be in the works and in the 2014 Futurama will show a model of an elaborate Martian colony.

As for television, wall screens will have replaced the ordinary set; but transparent cubes will be making their appearance in which three-dimensional viewing will be possible. In fact, one popular exhibit at the 2014 World's Fair will be such a 3-D TV, built life-size, in which ballet performances will be seen. The cube will slowly revolve for viewing from all angles.

One can go on indefinitely in this happy extrapolation, but all is not rosy.

As I stood in line waiting to get into the General Electric exhibit at the 1964 fair, I found myself staring at Equitable Life's grim sign blinking out the population of the United States, with the number (over 191,000,000) increasing by 1 every 11 seconds. During the interval which I spent inside the G.E. pavilion, the American population had increased by nearly 300 and the world's population by 6,000.

In 2014, there is every likelihood that the world population will be 6,500,000,000 and the population of the United States will be 350,000,000. Boston-to-Washington, the most crowded area of its size on the earth, will have become a single city with a population of over 40,000,000.

Population pressure will force increasing penetration of desert and polar areas. Most surprising and, in some ways, heartening, 2014 will see a good beginning made in the colonization of the continental shelves. Underwater housing will have its attractions to those who like water sports, and will undoubtedly encourage the more efficient exploitation of ocean resources, both food and mineral. General Motors shows, in its 1964 exhibit, the model of an underwater hotel of what might be called mouth-watering luxury. The 2014 World's Fair will have exhibits showing cities in the deep sea with bathyscaphe liners carrying men and supplies across and into the abyss.

Ordinary agriculture will keep up with great difficulty and there will be "farms" turning to the more efficient micro-organisms. Processed yeast and algae products will be available in a variety of flavors. The 2014 fair will feature an Algae Bar at which "mock-turkey" and "pseudosteak" will be served. It won't be bad at all (if you can dig up those premium prices), but there will be considerable psychological resistance to such an innovation.

Although technology will still keep up with population through 2014, it will be only through a supreme effort and with but partial success. Not all the world's population will enjoy the gadgety world of the future to the full. A larger portion than today will be deprived and although they may be better off, materially, than today, they will be further behind when compared with the advanced portions of the world. They will have moved backward, relatively.

Nor can technology continue to match population growth if that remains unchecked. Consider Manhattan of 1964, which has a population density of 80,000 per square mile at night and of over 100,000 per square mile during the working day. If the whole earth, including the Sahara, the Himalayan Mountain peaks, Greenland, Antarctica and every square mile of the ocean bottom, to the deepest abyss, were as packed as Manhattan at noon, surely you would agree that no way to support such a population (let alone make it comfortable) was conceivable. In fact, support would fail long before the World-Manhattan was reached.

Well, the earth's population is now about 3,000,000,000 and is doubling every 40 years. If this rate of doubling goes unchecked, then a World-Manhattan is coming in just 500 years. All earth will be a single choked Manhattan by A.D. 2450 and society will collapse long before that!

There are only two general ways of preventing this: (1) raise the death rate; (2) lower the birth rate. Undoubtedly, the world of A>D. 2014 will have agreed on the latter method. Indeed, the increasing use of mechanical devices to replace failing hearts and kidneys, and repair stiffening arteries and breaking nerves will have cut the death rate still further and have lifted the life expectancy in some parts of the world to age 85.

There will, therefore, be a worldwide propaganda drive in favor of birth control by rational and humane methods and, by 2014, it will undoubtedly have taken serious effect. The rate of increase of population will have slackened*but, I suspect, not sufficiently.

One of the more serious exhibits at the 2014 World's Fair, accordingly, will be a series of lectures, movies and documentary material at the World Population Control Center (adults only; special showings for teen-agers).

The situation will have been made the more serious by the advances of automation. The world of A.D. 2014 will have few routine jobs that cannot be done better by some machine than by any human being. Mankind will therefore have become largely a race of machine tenders. Schools will have to be oriented in this direction. Part of the General Electric exhibit today consists of a school of the future in which such present realities as closed-circuit TV and programmed tapes aid the teaching process. It is not only the techniques of teaching that will advance, however, but also the subject matter that will change. All the high-school students will be taught the fundamentals of computer technology will become proficient in binary arithmetic and will be trained to perfection in the use of the computer languages that will have developed out of those like the contemporary "Fortran" (from "formula translation").

Even so, mankind will suffer badly from the disease of boredom, a disease spreading more widely each year and growing in intensity. This will have serious mental, emotional and sociological consequences, and I dare say that psychiatry will be far and away the most important medical specialty in 2014. The lucky few who can be involved in creative work of any sort will be the true elite of mankind, for they alone will do more than serve a machine.

Indeed, the most somber speculation I can make about A.D. 2014 is that in a society of enforced leisure, the most glorious single word in the vocabulary will have become work!

James Ford wrote:FLUSHING MEADOWS, Queens (PIX11) - It was the site of both the 1939 and 1964 World’s Fairs, and now, as the city celebrates the 75th and 50th anniversaries of those expositions, Flushing Meadows Corona Park is becoming the scene of many commemorative events, as well as some physical plant improvements, in relation to the anniversary celebration. However, many daily users of the park say that away from the main World’s Fair landmarks, their park is in sore need of repairs.

EDAN LEPUCKI wrote:If Lev Grossman’s “The Magicians” was like “The Secret History” crossed with “Harry Potter,” and if its sequel, “The Magician King,” was a descendant of “The Chronicles of Narnia” (with a touch of the 1990s flick “The Craft” thrown in), then what cultural mash-up does Lev Grossman conjure in “The Magician’s Land,” the trilogy’s final book? I can’t tell you, because I was too thoroughly swept away by this richly imagined and continually surprising novel to be concerned with cute comparisons.

you know, this is one series i wouldn't mind seeing get the Game of Thrones treatment on HBO or somewhere. i know we already had a halfway decent Interview film and a pretty terrible quen of the damned, but it's been long enough since those films that this could easily be rebooted as a tv series. it would surely be a ton better than true blood or vampire diaries or any of the other tv vampire crap out there now.

i think i'm gonna have to go and reread the series (at least the 1st 5 books) in time for this one to come out.

Rice’s Vampire Chronicles novels are centered around 18th century French nobleman vamp Lestat de Lioncourt and previously spawned feature adaptations Interview with the Vampire and Queen of the Damned at rival Warner Bros. The deal gives Universal and Imagine access to the entire Vampire Chronicle series as well as the adapted screenplay for Tale of the Body Thief by Rice’s son Christopher Rice and any future novels including the upcoming 11th book Prince Lestat.

Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, who are developing classic monster flicks The Mummy and Van Helsing for the studio, will produce. Imagine President Erica Huggins will oversee the series on behalf of the company and Bobby Cohen will exec produce. Anne Rice is repped by CAA, Janklow & Nesbit Associates and attorney Christine Cuddy of Kleinberg, Lange, Cuddy & Carlo LLP. Christopher Rice is repped by Resolution, Janklow & Nesbit Associates and attorney Christine Cuddy of Kleinberg, Lange, Cuddy & Carlo LLP. Kurtzman and Orci are repped by CAA and Gendler & Kelly, APC.

you know, this is one series i wouldn't mind seeing get the Game of Thrones treatment on HBO or somewhere. i know we already had a halfway decent Interview film and a pretty terrible quen of the damned, but it's been long enough since those films that this could easily be rebooted as a tv series. it would surely be a ton better than true blood or vampire diaries or any of the other tv vampire crap out there now.

i think i'm gonna have to go and reread the series (at least the 1st 5 books) in time for this one to come out.

Rice’s Vampire Chronicles novels are centered around 18th century French nobleman vamp Lestat de Lioncourt and previously spawned feature adaptations Interview with the Vampire and Queen of the Damned at rival Warner Bros. The deal gives Universal and Imagine access to the entire Vampire Chronicle series as well as the adapted screenplay for Tale of the Body Thief by Rice’s son Christopher Rice and any future novels including the upcoming 11th book Prince Lestat.

Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, who are developing classic monster flicks The Mummy and Van Helsing for the studio, will produce. Imagine President Erica Huggins will oversee the series on behalf of the company and Bobby Cohen will exec produce. Anne Rice is repped by CAA, Janklow & Nesbit Associates and attorney Christine Cuddy of Kleinberg, Lange, Cuddy & Carlo LLP. Christopher Rice is repped by Resolution, Janklow & Nesbit Associates and attorney Christine Cuddy of Kleinberg, Lange, Cuddy & Carlo LLP. Kurtzman and Orci are repped by CAA and Gendler & Kelly, APC.

well, if you're going to post this news twice, then i'm going to reply to it twice!

i was really hoping they would make this a TV series on HBO or Showtime, there's just so much material that it doesn't feel like a film series can cover it all. HBO probably doesn't want it since it would feel like they were rehashing True Blood (despite the fact that this series came before that and is much, much better as well). still, i'm glad to see SOMETHING being done with these books.... such great material for a franchise, which has gone un(der)used for so long.

kinda disappointed this has fallen into the Orci/Kurtzman lap though. those guys already screwed up Star Trek, please don't screw up another beloved series for me.

also, Nicolaj Coster-Waldau as Lestat, please.

BONUS CONTENT: i am currently re-reading Interview with the Vampire, with the plan to have read all first five books by the time the new one comes out in October.

Chris Gardner wrote:There was a time when Andrew Dice Clay was known as the most controversial comic around. His trademark dirty mouth pushed him to the pinnacle of pop culture superstardom. But, as the Dice Man found out, A-list status can often be fleeting.

That said, the 57-year-old didn't fade into the shadows for long. Following a critically acclaimed turn in Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine, an upcoming role in a Martin Scorsese- and Mick Jagger-produced series project for HBO, and a high-profile comedy tour (from Australia to the U.S.), Clay is spitting words in a brand new medium: print.

His first memoir, The Filthy Truth, hit bookshelves Nov. 11 from Touchstone/Simon & Schuster. He recently talked to The Hollywood Reporter about why he waited so long to tell his story, what it would take for him to do another Allen flick (not much) and who should play him on the big screen.

you know, this is one series i wouldn't mind seeing get the Game of Thrones treatment on HBO or somewhere. i know we already had a halfway decent Interview film and a pretty terrible quen of the damned, but it's been long enough since those films that this could easily be rebooted as a tv series. it would surely be a ton better than true blood or vampire diaries or any of the other tv vampire crap out there now.

i think i'm gonna have to go and reread the series (at least the 1st 5 books) in time for this one to come out.

Rice’s Vampire Chronicles novels are centered around 18th century French nobleman vamp Lestat de Lioncourt and previously spawned feature adaptations Interview with the Vampire and Queen of the Damned at rival Warner Bros. The deal gives Universal and Imagine access to the entire Vampire Chronicle series as well as the adapted screenplay for Tale of the Body Thief by Rice’s son Christopher Rice and any future novels including the upcoming 11th book Prince Lestat.

Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, who are developing classic monster flicks The Mummy and Van Helsing for the studio, will produce. Imagine President Erica Huggins will oversee the series on behalf of the company and Bobby Cohen will exec produce. Anne Rice is repped by CAA, Janklow & Nesbit Associates and attorney Christine Cuddy of Kleinberg, Lange, Cuddy & Carlo LLP. Christopher Rice is repped by Resolution, Janklow & Nesbit Associates and attorney Christine Cuddy of Kleinberg, Lange, Cuddy & Carlo LLP. Kurtzman and Orci are repped by CAA and Gendler & Kelly, APC.

well, if you're going to post this news twice, then i'm going to reply to it twice!

i was really hoping they would make this a TV series on HBO or Showtime, there's just so much material that it doesn't feel like a film series can cover it all. HBO probably doesn't want it since it would feel like they were rehashing True Blood (despite the fact that this series came before that and is much, much better as well). still, i'm glad to see SOMETHING being done with these books.... such great material for a franchise, which has gone un(der)used for so long.

kinda disappointed this has fallen into the Orci/Kurtzman lap though. those guys already screwed up Star Trek, please don't screw up another beloved series for me.

also, Nicolaj Coster-Waldau as Lestat, please.

BONUS CONTENT: i am currently re-reading Interview with the Vampire, with the plan to have read all first five books by the time the new one comes out in October.

Anne Rice talks about reviving vampire creations in 'Prince Lestat'The phrase paranormal romance 'didn't exist when I wrote the vampire novels in the beginning,' Anne Rice says'What I write is out-and-out pornography,' Anne Rice says. 'I think it's a fine word'Anne Rice talks about being a paranormal romance pioneer, social media and new novel 'Prince Lestat'

MARC WEINGARTEN wrote:George Clinton's memoir features aliens, spaceships, George W. Bush, grown men wearing diapers and platform shoes, and a wealth of stories about some of the seminal music Clinton and his collaborators in the Parliament-Funkadelic collective have made during the past 30 years. It also features thieving lawyers, shifty managers and crack cocaine. In short, this entertaining book is about the party, then the come-down.

TheButcher wrote:The phrase paranormal romance 'didn't exist when I wrote the vampire novels in the beginning,' Anne Rice says'What I write is out-and-out pornography,' Anne Rice says. 'I think it's a fine word'Anne Rice talks about being a paranormal romance pioneer, social media and new novel 'Prince Lestat'

in the case of the vampire chronicles, i'd go further and say it's Dumbledore porn. i think i forgot how Dumbledore these books are. every single male vampire is in love with every single other male vampire. obviously they Dumbledore analogy was there on purpose, when these books were written in a less enlightened time, before Dumbledore marriage was commonplace. i'm surprised none of the characters in the new book have gotten Dumbledore married yet, but i've still got a bit left to go. i wonder what it is about vampires in particular that makes them appealing as a Dumbledore metaphor, besides the old taboo against homosexuality. it's not so much a taboo anymore, so they'll have to find some other villified and misunderstood group to use vampires as a metaphor for.

speaking of the new book... it's not very good. rice is not the writer she used to be.

Germain Lussier wrote:Considering this site is called “Slashfilm,” we don’t cover a lot of books. But most books aren’t written by Ernie Cline. Cline first hit our radar as the writer of Fanboys, the Star Wars fan story directed by Kyle Newman. He then truly hit a home run with Ready Player One, a massive sci-fi adventure influenced by movies, music, video games and more. It’s currently being developed into a movie by Warner Bros. That’s why Cline’s work fits so well on this site. Those who live and breathe pop culture will truly appreciate it.

His second novel, Armada, sounds like it further explores some of the concepts he’s played with before. The movie rights were picked up last year and, finally, Random House has announced an official release date for the book: July 14. Along with that, we now have the cover and a full synopsis. However, in that synopsis is something very odd. It seems Cline is drawing heavily from The Last Starfighter. Could that actually be?

Todd Martens wrote: Author Cline spoke of how early video games shaped “Ready Player One” and will continue to inform his upcoming novel, “Armada.” Cline said the new book was inspired by how “Star Wars” impacted the video game industry, citing a “Star Wars”-influenced game such as “Space Invaders.”

“The idea behind ‘Armada’ is that was all by design, to teach us all to control drones to fight off an alien infestation,” Cline said. “That fantasy of all these video game skills I’ve been honing — what if they had value in real life?”

It gets right to the core appeal of games, Cline said. “The role video games fill in society is they fill this hunter-gatherer need,” he said.

“All of us are hardwired by millions of years of human evolution to form teams, hunt, gather … social climb, organize things,” he continued. “These are things that are hardwired into us that we don’t do anymore. We sit in cubicles and we do things that are not related to our hunter-gatherer tribal instincts. Video games let us do all that. They let us form clans and find treasures and conquer worlds. Humans are explorers.”

Todd Martens wrote: Author Cline spoke of how early video games shaped “Ready Player One” and will continue to inform his upcoming novel, “Armada.” Cline said the new book was inspired by how “Star Wars” impacted the video game industry, citing a “Star Wars”-influenced game such as “Space Invaders.”

“The idea behind ‘Armada’ is that was all by design, to teach us all to control drones to fight off an alien infestation,” Cline said. “That fantasy of all these video game skills I’ve been honing — what if they had value in real life?”

Todd Martens wrote: Author Cline spoke of how early video games shaped “Ready Player One” and will continue to inform his upcoming novel, “Armada.” Cline said the new book was inspired by how “Star Wars” impacted the video game industry, citing a “Star Wars”-influenced game such as “Space Invaders.”

“The idea behind ‘Armada’ is that was all by design, to teach us all to control drones to fight off an alien infestation,” Cline said. “That fantasy of all these video game skills I’ve been honing — what if they had value in real life?”

So tomorrow is the release date for the "new" Harper Lee novel, Go Set a Watchman. This is the sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird, one of the most influential American novels ever written (and I say that with no hyperbole).

If you haven't heard about this book yet, be prepared to be amazed: set years after Mockingbird, it tells the tale of a grown up Scout Finch returning home to visit her father Atticus, who is still practicing law, but apparently is now a flaming RACIST. Yes, a racist. This book was written before Lee published Mockingbird, and was obviously never released until now (which in and of itself seems to be a controversial thing).

I really don't know how to feel about this. I read Mockingbird only once, many years ago, but I've seen the movie a number of times despite finding it a hard watch, emotionally. But to think that Atticus is anything other than a upstanding moral human being is a tough pill to swallow.

i just read TKaMB for the first time, in anticipation of the release of GSaWM (i love acronyming things!). somehow i got through school without ever being assigned to read that book. probably a good thing, it's the kind of book i would've hated in high school but which i can appreciate now. it really does live up to its reputation.

that said, atticus finch becoming a racist? well, i'll have to read it to figure out exactly how that happens. but on the surface, yeah, it sounds pretty... far-fetched.

TheBaxter wrote:i just read TKaMB for the first time, in anticipation of the release of GSaWM (i love acronyming things!). somehow i got through school without ever being assigned to read that book. probably a good thing, it's the kind of book i would've hated in high school but which i can appreciate now. it really does live up to its reputation.

that said, atticus finch becoming a racist? well, i'll have to read it to figure out exactly how that happens. but on the surface, yeah, it sounds pretty... far-fetched.

MARK SCHILLING wrote:A key scriptwriter on these and other Kurosawa classics was Shinobu Hashimoto, whose career spanned six decades — and he is still with us today at age 97. A 2006 memoir, “Fukugan No Eizo: Watashi to Kurosawa Akira,” of Hashimoto’s years with Kurosawa has now been translated into English as “Compound Cinematics: Akira Kurosawa and I” by Lori Hitchcock Morimoto.

Andy Lewis wrote:Burt Reynolds' But Enough About Me: A Memoir (G.P. Putnam's Sons, Nov. 17, $27.95, 320 pages) should be wildly entertaining. He has said he plans to "call out the assholes" from his past and make amends for "being an asshole" himself. Highlights — and lowlights — from his colorful past include playing football at Florida State, romances (Loni Anderson, Sally Field), debilitating health problems and a bankruptcy.

Andy Lewis wrote:Burt Reynolds' But Enough About Me: A Memoir (G.P. Putnam's Sons, Nov. 17, $27.95, 320 pages) should be wildly entertaining. He has said he plans to "call out the assholes" from his past and make amends for "being an asshole" himself. Highlights — and lowlights — from his colorful past include playing football at Florida State, romances (Loni Anderson, Sally Field), debilitating health problems and a bankruptcy.

I'm not into memiors/biographies, but that one is officially on my list to read.

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This could go either way for them. Playboy has been notorious for printing excellent short stories and provocative articles, but the audience has been limited to mostly a bunch of horny young men that turned the pages out of post-spank boredom. Perhaps this could be a spark in widening the audience in those terms. Or they could completely flop like Heff's cock without Viagra.

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Fievel wrote:This could go either way for them. Playboy has been notorious for printing excellent short stories and provocative articles, but the audience has been limited to mostly a bunch of horny young men that turned the pages out of post-spank boredom. Perhaps this could be a spark in widening the audience in those terms. Or they could completely flop like Heff's cock without Viagra.

I suspect there will be a bump in readership when this happens (everyone's going to want to have "that issue"), but ultimately its gonna fail. And I really think that SUBSCRIPTIONS will drop dramatically. If a particularly provocative article is promoted, then maybe that specific month will sell off shelves, but would you really renew your yearly subscription now knowing that the T&A is gone? I wouldn't. This magazine has never hidden from what its about. Having good writers has only improved its status, but lets be real: Playboy is about "classy" naked women photospreads.

Full disclosure: I've never had a subscription, but I've certainly "read" a bunch of them in my youth. I had a summer job in high school at a book bindery that specialized in re-skinning hardbound textbooks and periodicals. In the 3 months I worked there, we have a few Playboy collections that had to be bound. Needless to say, those days, "quality assurance" took their jobs very seriously...

Regarding the third book in The Passage series (trilogy?) by Justin Cronin:

Justin Cronin's Facebook Page wrote:To those of you wondering when that ENORMOUS pile of paper called The City of Mirrors will become a hard rectangular object for sale on the shelves of America and elsewhere: spring '16, or so they tell me. Bless you for your patience and "I think it will be worth the wait," said Justin modestly

If any of you haven't checked these books out yet (The Passage and The Twelve), they are awesome. I listened to the audiobooks three years ago, and man.... those books still pop up in my head. Apocalyptic vampire story unlike anything I've ever encountered - and the vampire aspect is only a fraction as interesting as the post-apocalyptic America that the author has created.

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Fievel wrote:Regarding the third book in The Passage series (trilogy?) by Justin Cronin:

Justin Cronin's Facebook Page wrote:To those of you wondering when that ENORMOUS pile of paper called The City of Mirrors will become a hard rectangular object for sale on the shelves of America and elsewhere: spring '16, or so they tell me. Bless you for your patience and "I think it will be worth the wait," said Justin modestly

If any of you haven't checked these books out yet (The Passage and The Twelve), they are awesome. I listened to the audiobooks three years ago, and man.... those books still pop up in my head. Apocalyptic vampire story unlike anything I've ever encountered - and the vampire aspect is only a fraction as interesting as the post-apocalyptic America that the author has created.

I second this! I just finished listening to The Twelve last week and it was AWESOME. I hope Scott Brick returns to narrate The City of Mirrors.

"Alright Shaggy - you and Scooby head over that way. The girls and I will go this way."

TheSteveStrout wrote:SS: I am huge into the "comic con" scene, as I cover the conventions regularly forwww.thestevestrout.com. You're actually one of the founders of the biggest con of all, San Diego Comic Con or Comic Con International. How did SDCC come to fruition, and are you still involved in any way with it?

GB:Back then, a lot of my high school buddies and other San Diego fans and I banded together to celebrate our enthusiasms. We met with Ray Bradbury and Jack Kirby and Forrest J. Ackerman and many other talents. We attended conventions and fan meetings and started producing fanzines—we even tried to film a movie version of “A Sound of Thunder.” A few years later, in 1970, with the encouragement and help of fans like Shel Dorf and Ken Krueger, and many like-minded men and women in the local fan communities, we decided to put on a small convention modeled in part on the NYC Triple Fan Fair. We loved so many things, including comics and movies and TV and science fiction, so we invited many of our favorite artists and authors—and later, filmmakers-- to be guests—and lo and behold, a lot of them attended! Ray Bradbury and Forry attended every single SDCC until they could no longer travel. Ray Bradbury was frequently accompanied with his long-time friend, Ray Harryhausen and his wife Diana. Jack and Shel and Ken and many others were frequent attendees into the nineties. Along the way, by going to SDCC, I met so many wonderful people—for which I am eternally grateful.

Charlie Jane Anders wrote:When Charles Stross isn’t writing mind-blowing space opera about the future of banking, he’s the ultra-prolific author of two long-running series. And one of those, the Laundry Files, has won praise (and a Best Novella Hugo) for its look at a spy agency that deals with other-worldly threats.

We’ve got the exclusive first look at the next Laundry Files book, The Nightmare Stacks—and Stross explains just how this book changes everything in his world.

Here’s the synopsis for The Nightmare Stacks, which comes out in June 2016:

Alex Schwartz had a promising future – until he contracted an unfortunate bout of vampirism, and agreed to join the Laundry, Britain’s only counter-occult secret agency.

His first assignment is in Leeds – his old hometown. The thought of telling his parents that he’s lost his old job, let alone them finding out about his ‘condition’, is causing Alex more anxiety than learning how to live as a vampire secret agent preparing to confront multiple apocalypses.

His only saving grace is Cassie Brewer, a green-haired goth who flirts with him despite his awkward personality and massive amounts of sunblock.

But Cassie has secrets of her own – secrets that make Alex’s night life seem positively normal . . .

This is a huge, major change of pace for the Laundry Files series. So we had to ask Stross what was up. Here’s what he told us!

Mike Fleming wrote:EXCLUSIVE: After a long manhunt that involved months of interviews with substantial authors, Michael Mann has found his co-writer for the prequel novel to Mann’s landmark crime film Heat. Writing with Mann will be Reed Farrel Coleman, the four-time Edgar Award-nominated author who is up for the award tonight for his 2016 novel Where It Hurts, part of mystery series that revolves around the retired Suffolk County cop Gus Murphy. Coleman will collaborate with Mann to tell an origin story involving the characters that populated the Al Pacino-Robert De Niro-led ensemble drama that Mann scripted, directed and produced. The novel will be published next year under the Michael Mann imprint at William Morrow/HarperCollins.

What potential story lines were teased in the movie that could make for a compelling origin story chapters? They include how Robert De Niro’s Neil McCauley met his crew members played by Val Kilmer, Danny Trejo and Tom Sizemore as they bonded in Folsom Prison as McCauley was formulating his heist mentality that included being schooled by the mentor who told him do not have anything in your life that you can’t walk out on in 15 seconds. Some early cases involving Pacino’s detective character Vincent Hanna were also teased in the movie, such as when Nate (Jon Voight) told McCauley about his nemesis cop’s dogged nature, noting that he hunted Frankie Yonder in Chicago, before he built his own crime fighting crew. Most of those characters, including the wheelchair-bound Kelso (Tom Noonan) who provided the bank alarm schematics had history that was part of the mythology Mann developed with research based on the exploits of real characters on either side of the law. Mann’s detective pal Charlie Adamson hunted down the real McCauley and much of the drama is based on actual events, including the cop inviting the robber for the cup of coffee that informed the iconic face-to-face between De Niro and Pacino. Coleman will soon be immersing himself in Mann’s research files.

Mann was a fan of Coleman’s Gus Murphy novels, but the author also has hit the NYT bestseller lists three times since taking over the Jesse Stone mystery series after Robert B Parker passed away. Coleman becomes the second major author to partner with Mann on his new publishing imprint after Mann partnered with bestselling The Cartel author Don Winslow on a novel about the relationship between legendary organized crime boss Tony Accardo and his innovative protégé, Sam Giancana, and the explosive repercussions that ensued.

Mann separately has a non-fiction book near completion that he is keeping under wraps for now. Heat recently celebrated its 20th anniversary, and on May 9 Fox releases the Director’s Definitive Edition of the movie on Blu-Ray and DVD.

Coleman, whose most recent novel What You Break was published in February, and Michael Mann Books are repped by Shane Salerno at The Story Factory. Mann is also represented by CAA, LBI and attorney Harold Brown.

Mann just separately teamed with producer Michael De Luca on an acquisition of the upcoming Mark Bowden Vietnam Tet Offensive book Hue 1968, which they’ll turn into an eight to 10-hour miniseries, with Mann planning to direct multiple episodes.

Tim Gray wrote:Happy birthday, Frodo. J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” debuted July 29, 1954; the next two books were published separately in the next 15 months. Tolkien’s popularity in the U.S. climbed significantly in 1965, when Ballantine printed a revised paperback edition.

When United Artists acquired film rights to “Rings” in 1969, Variety explained that the books’ success was fueled by students, adding that the trilogy “preceded marijuana and LSD in making the younger generation flip.” For years, “Rings” continued to fascinate but frustrate filmmakers. Among those who flirted with film adaptations were Walt Disney, John Boorman and the Beatles; Ralph Bakshi did a 1978 animated version. But a live-action version went nowhere until 1998, when Peter Jackson made a successful pitch to New Line’s Bob Shaye.

On Aug. 31, 1998, Variety announced that New Line would commit $130 million to perhaps the biggest gamble in the history of movies: Jackson would make three films simultaneously. If the first one flopped, it would doom the next two as well; this would be a financial disaster, especially for the overseas distributors who put their money on the line. The Variety story by Benedict Carver detailed the complex legal issues that had developed over the intervening four decades, as well as the artistic challenge of translating the scope of the three books.

Jackson told Variety that his vision for the films was both epic and personal. “My philosophy is that these are historical films, not fantasies or fairy tales. It’s a story with heart and soul, but also one that’s romantic.”

Carver added “Jackson acknowledges that he’s stepping into a potential firestorm by taking on a property as beloved as ‘Rings.’ ”

Shaye and New Line’s Michael Lynne and Rolf Mittweg committed to the project, but a key was studio exec Mark Ordesky, who was a fan of both Tolkien and the early films of Jackson. Ordesky made frequent trips between New Zealand, Los Angeles and New York as he oversaw 274 days of principal photography.

The first film opened Dec. 19, 2001, and was such a success that the post-production budget was increased for the other two, “The Two Towers” and “The Return of the King.” The production budget (before marketing costs) was finally estimated at $330 million, and the three films earned nearly $3 billion at the worldwide box office. (Jackson’s subsequent “The Hobbit” trilogy minted an additional $2.9 billion at the box office.)

Tolkien’s masterpiece proved that there were enormous audiences for fantasy works, far beyond the American students who embraced the books. The Tolkien trilogy paved the way for subsequent fantasy works in literature (e.g., the George R.R. Martin book series “A Song of Ice and Fire” aka “Game of Thrones”), videogames (“Dungeons and Dragons”) and films/TV works. In addition, Jackson’s storytelling and technology influenced legions of projects in the 21st century.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was 45 when he started writing the first “Rings,” as a sequel to his 1937 “The Hobbit”; he was 63 when the third novel was published. Though Tolkien died in 1973, his legacy continues; a posthumous novel, “The Children of Hurin,” was published in April 2007, and “Beren and Luthien” debuted June 1, 2017. The Toronto Star estimates that the Tolkien books have sold 150 million copies.